More TL2 vs. D3 Reviews

Posted By: September 28, 2012

We saw a bunch of early Torchlight 2 reviews that compared the game to Diablo III, for better or worse. Those types of articles have kept coming, and the debate is interesting since TL2 intentionally does many things differently than D3, and many of those things (such as the quantity/quality of loot) are exactly what many D3 fans complain about.

An article on the The Koalition offers six points arguing why TL2 is better than D3. Each point is argued at some length in the piece, but I’ll just snip out the main points here and you can read the article if you want more details.

“How does Torchlight II make Diablo III look bad,” you ask? Well, to start with, the ridiculous always-on online DRM is nowhere to be found, there’s no region locking plus none of the other nonsense that comes with a Blizzard game. Torchlight II can be played while running Steam in offline mode — it even supports co-op play over LAN. Add to that a robust save system (which literally remembers your position in a dungeon), traditional RPG character progression system that asks the player to make actual choices (i.e. put points into attributes like Strength and Dexterity), neat selection of classes, pets and did I mention there’s a lot of loot?

The Forbes gaming blog entitled their TL2 article/review “Let there be loot” which gives you a sense of the direction it takes. They don’t have any real clear preferences in terms of the loot, but the piece does offer one opinion, about the music, I’ve yet to hear made anywhere else. Quotes:

I’m not a big fan of the music in Torchlight 2. The electric guitars don’t work for me, and the score fails to ever really draw me in the ways some other recent titles have. This is one area where Diablo III beats Torchlight II hands-down.

…The story of Torchlight 2, like so many other dungeon crawlers, is entirely forgettable. It’s not bad, it’s just not particularly compelling. I think it’s just industry standard now to make the stories in this type of game pretty bland. Diablo III had a really flat story with a hugely disappointing ending. Torchlight 2 is more fun, and its story is more fun and less melodramatic (thank goodness) but it still comes up short. I think there’s room for a complex, deep story in dungeon crawlers, and so far neither Torchlight 2 or Diablo III has delivered.

I’ve played one character (an Engineer) through all of TL2 and done a few of the bonus maps as well, and aside from agreeing with the numerous articles that say “Normal” difficulty is too easy (I’ll do an Embermage on Veteran next), I’m still not sure where I stand on the two games. (Though I suppose I should make some opinions and write up a more formal review/comparison when I have the time.) Both games are fun and ARPG clicky, but it’s hard to compare in some ways since they’re so different.

Diablo III feels like a much larger, weightier, more formal experience where many, many hours are requires to get into the real game, to start to get a sense of the gear and play strategies required in Inferno, and to fully-appreciate the nuances and see a good number of the random events and areas.

Torchlight 2, for me at least, was much more immediately accessible. You get fun skills right away, and you get skill points to make them work better. I loved being able to spend some points to make my early skills better; instantly more damage, more radius, more fire tendrils seeking out enemies, etc. I like to get a skill I like, use it, get to know it, and improve it over time with more skill points. That was a core element of skills and spells in D1 and D2, as well as most other RPGs over history, and it’s weird that D3 chose to entirely jettison it by removing skill points AND skill rune levels. D3 does a fantastic job with all the variety of skills via runes, but I’d like ways to make them work better as well as differently.

TL2 does a great job with the skill trees, but of course the trade off is a lack of respecs. I didn’t care about that in D2 since I had much more time for gaming in those days, and I thought nothing of making dozens of different characters to try out all the different builds and play styles. There’s no way I’ll ever do that in TL2 (or D3) which makes me appreciate the flexibility that D3’s freespecing allows.

As for the loot… as everyone points out, you find far more numerous and interesting items right off the bat in TL2, with sets and uniques galore. It’s awesome to find items that actually make a noticeable difference in your character (rather than just adding 1% more dexterity or other negligible/incremental improvements as the D3 items do). And it’s awesome to find items in TL2 that you can’t use yet, but that will kick ass once you level or stat up to equip them. When you’re leveling up in D3, all the gear is so obviously meant to be disposable; to provide you with a tiny upgrade that you’ll outgrow in half an hour, that you never feel any attachment to anything.

I found numerous nice uniques in TL2 that I then got enchanted or socketed, and they then became “my” gear. I didn’t want to change those items and I used the same weapon and wore the same chest armor from level 30 to 48 or so, even bypassing several marginal upgrades, since the ones I had were serving me well and they fit nicely. No item in D3 ever gives me that sense of ownership or special usefulness short of the end game, and even then I’m always aware that I could instantly buy something better in the AH.

So yes, I definitely appreciate the style of the item system in TL2, which is a direct descendent from D2, rather than the style we have in D3. (Though D3’s item system seems to move a step closer to D2’s with every patch.)

Comments

NO DRM is actually a con in my opinion. Who cares about locked regions when there is no dedicated server to host games? You can only ensure the players and the items are legit if you play with people you trust/know.

And who buys aRPG games for single player anyways?

People who prefer TL2 are not comparing the two games, rather comparing runic vs. blizzard instead.

I logged 300+ hours with D3 and over 50 hours with TL. I can say IMO that if I was locked away for a year with only one game to play (with internet of course), I would pick D3, no question.

Well 300 hours … I played about 2000hours of Diablo2 Lod. And i played 100 hours D3 even though it sucks, i tried to like it but i just came to the conclusion that Diablo3 isnt a Diablo. I have faith in Blizzard that they may overcome their design decision and make a good game out of a good franchise. I know there are people out there who like Diablo 3 like it is, but i am not one of them. I played the Diablo Games to relax, because i played CounterStrike on a competetive Level for several years. You dont want to get from the other extreme concentration game with tactics into another one like that.

I’m splitting my game time between D3, TL2 and BL2 at the moment. I have knocked most of my telly on the head and even missed a few gym sessions too but I figured I never usually have this many titles vying for my attention.

This. Diablo was good, its gave me about 150h of gameplay… just like any above average $60 console game. Because thats all diablo3 is, its an above average game, not an amazing blow your mind out your ass and play religiously for years kind of game, like starcraft2, which I still play a few times a week even though im not competitive, its just a good game I can play with my friends (its sad cause my friends have d3 and sc2, and every single one of them doesn’t even want to play diablo3 when they could be playing customs or team matchs together)

“People who prefer TL2 are not comparing the two games, rather comparing runic vs. blizzard instead.”

^ ridiculous post

of course people are comparing the games and the people who prefer TL2 like TL2 better; that’s kinda the definition of “prefer”

I think TL2 and D3 both have good points and both have bad points

D3 has a more focused, centralized plot

everything you do in D3 is centered around stopping the Prime Evils

TL2 has more of a “world” feeling to it

as you go through the game you encounter different races, each with their own problems, and each needing something different from you,

TL2 almost has the makings of a “mini mmo”

yes, TL2 also has a primary “bad guy” you have to stop, but there are many quests that are not related to that at all, but they are important to the NPC’s you meet along the way

one great thing about TL2 is the dungeon designs

you go into a mine and have to dynamite walls to to travel further into the mine and discover secret areas

there are optional puzzles in other dungeons and solving the puzzles will open up treasure rooms

the phase beasts in TL2 are awesome kill one and a portal opens where the beast died, you go into the portal and you enter a small (2 to 3 room) dungeon that doesn’t allow you to town portal out of the only way out is to fight your way to the exit

what do phase beast in D3 do ? teleport

the desert in Act 2 of TL2 is so much better than the desert of D3 D3’s desert is flat, dead, very few props

TL2’s desert has sand dunes, stranded travelers, old ruins

it just feels so much more alive it’s actually fun to explore

TL2 has day/night cycles and weather effects

I don’t understand why D3 doesn’t have them even D2 had day/night cycles

“You can only ensure the players and the items are legit if you play with people you trust/know.”

that’s not entirely true

in multiplayer the game examines each player and puts a little exclamation mark next to them if their stats look suspicious (like 300 health at level 5 for example)

you can also inspect players

and if you suspect anyone of cheating you can “vote kick” the out of your game you can also “black list” them so no character of theirs can ever join one of your games again

and what does “items are legit” even mean in the context of D3 where you can go to the RMAH, spend $250 and buy gear ?

does it it mean “I legitimately bought it?”

I like D3, I still play it I like TL2, I play it I plan on playing Grim Dawn when it comes out

but if you think people who prefer TL2 don’t really appreciate the game, but only appreciate the developers then you’re crazy

I HATE World of Warcraft I cannot stand it

but I’m not so arrogant and blinded by fanboyism to say that the 6 million people who do like WoW aren’t really comparing the game to other, better mmos

I realize people have different tastes just accept the fact that people like different things than you

Well, I buy aRPGs for single player. Just because you don’t do it doesn’t make it true for everyone out there. 🙂

I split my playing time between D2, D3 and TL2 at the moment. I don’t have yet the feeling that D3 has the long-time addicitveness D2 has. But I may feel differently over the next few years and the feeling may be entirely realted to the fact the I play almost exclusively single player and thus miss the regular set and unique drops which are very rare in D3 because of the AH (no matter that Blizzard says that they wouldn’t have increased the drop odds if there was no AH…then I think it would have been a really bad choice, because a lot of people love to see uniquesdrop 🙂

I haven’t had too much playtime for TL2 yet, but it had me playing for 6 hours straight after purchase, which D3 had also, but for different reasons: Because I love the Diablo world and am familiar with it, because the fights are fun, whereas in TL2 it were mostly the feeling of “another unique! I want moaaar!” and the urge to spend skill and stat points.

“Diablo III feels like a much larger, weightier, more formal experience where many, many hours are requires to get into the real game”

I’ve had the opposite experience, Diablo 3 offers little randomization and basically feels like it’s on rails the whole way through. The lack of character development also makes it feel “less weighty” and more casual and informal.

Yeah, I love how I have to google the most optimal stat point allocation in TL2 otherwise my character is gimped. Great.

Placing one more point into a skill I already have, so much more exciting than unlocking a new rune which changes how I use a skill. Having to play another character just to try new skills is awesome if you are a teenager.

Are you mad?

TL2 offers several neat things but skill/stat points is not one of them.

I guess it depends on WHY someone is playing these games. I couldn’t care less about the roleplay stuff, story and quests. For me, aRPG is basically a huge time sink, which you grind until your fingers bleed to make that one perfect character.

I am still waiting for my refund from Steam/Runic. I know its my fault for buying through them [I’m not a huge gamer so it was ignorance as I thought Steam was a “name”]. Well, their system is sucks harder than D3 DRM 7 days a week and twice on sunday. If I get greeted by the steam splash one more time, I’m killing a kitten.

Having said that, D3 is not a perfect game. The drops/crafting/economy still have a big chasm which to overcome. And that is saying a lot since that is the game basically.

TL1 was nice because I had not played a ARPG since D2 and my computer was making that look like Pong. Now that I have D3, I had a hard time sitting through an entire Whimsyshire game. Secret level=ok. Whole game=not so much.

I know I need to give a bit more of a chance, but quite frankly I am enjoying D3. My hope is for more adjustments. More world events. PvP. And hopefully in time an expansion.

The whole problem with the D3 drama is the extreme thinking. The loudest mouths of the community seems to be the polar ends of the spectrum. The waytoocasualforD3inthefirstplace crowd and the Igottoparagon100thenextday crowd. As in life, we are not listening to the rest of us in the middle of the curve. And again, despite the adjustments that are needed, the game is pretty nice and will cover me nicely for a good while.

At this point, the most troubling thing about the D3sucks crowd is that, well, the game is almost 4 months old now. I think you’ve mourned enough. Move on.

1. Story is weak 2. Chars arent that funny 2 play (more awesome looking skills please) 3. item rewards suck ( i dont wanna stack 100000000000MF to get 1 legendary a week) 4. Blizzard handled the game like they are politicians—> promise so much, give almost nothing. 5. Hope is lying in the expansion 6. Diablo 3 developers are arrogant people with no soul

i see this response often, and i have used it from time to time in a few other places. this site, however, is not diablo3.incgamers, its diablo.incgamers. there are forums for diablo 2 still, and diablo “clones” and arpg news that is not related to diablo 3 on the front page.

i dont know why that guy is still here, but thats why i am. i do not play diablo 3 anymore, just too many things they took in a direction that just isn’t for me. so why do i still come here and post? because i love the diablo world (diablo 1/2 sucked away so many years of my life), and because i want to see if at some point they “fix” my beloved diablo series. (if the site was called diablo3lovers.com, then i could understand your viewpoint)

Funny, how different expectations people have. I’m not playing aRPGs for stories. Good/bad story, it’s all the same to me. It also baffles me, that people do not consider good rares to be item rewards, they only care about sets/legendaries.

How in lord’s name can you write something like that Flux: “(Though D3?s item system seems to move a step closer to D2?s with every patch.)” They didn’t change a jack shit in itemization over the last patches except of adding flavor procs to unique items which are basically that – useless flavor. How does it come any inch closer to D2 loot is beyond me. Sorry man, but with that one sentence you kill your credibility for me.

Well I didn’t say D3 was anywhere near D2 at this point. But a lot of the “reinventing the arpg wheel” stuff in D3 has been rolled back, or at least minimized. v1.04 and v1.05 greatly improved sets/legendaries, doubled their frequency (can you double zero?), gave them more flavor, etc. And they’ve added a players X style option and a pandemonium event. All very D2 in style.

Also, not to echo jay wilson, and not to excuse all of D3’s item system failings, but people comparing the D2 item system, as it was after 10 years, including an expansion and numerous huge patches, to D3C’s item system a few months after launch and just one patch) is apples to oranges. D2C’s item system in late 2000 was much more limited than D3’s is now, and the game was a tiny fraction of the D3 game.

flux is right, the same thing is happening in fighting games, people are complaining that a new game is garbage because it has glichs/infinites and its unbalanced, but their comparing it to a game thats had 4 large scale expandsions and full balance/bug fixes, I think if D3 gets some major fixs for about a year, its going to be a completely different game, but for now we just need to live the the shit that is there. And oh does it stink.

“but people comparing the D2 item system, as it was after 10 years, including an expansion and numerous huge patches…”

serously, im suprised you make this same lame argument. so what it was after 10 years. they had it! and they still do. they had the blueprint for a great item system, but instead they tacked on a really poor one at the end of the dev cycle, while knowing it was the most important part of the game.

so true… every patch that wasn’t just bug fixes has included more and more things that are similar to diablo 2. the same exact things that people rabbled that they wanted for five years during development, but blizzard took out to make the game “better”.

Quite honestly while Torchlight II is a much better more satisifying loot game, neither game really gives me that old Diablo feeling. We need that dark gothic feel of awesomeness back and neither provide that.

path of exile i feel is, just like these other ones, a good game but does not capture all the feeling and fun i need. its like every arpg recently is missing one or two key things to make it a lasting good time.

I know a lot of people yearn for the point system that D2 had, but given the gaming time I have available I frankly prefer the flexibility of D3. It was so nice being able to play the game knowing I wasn’t messing up my character irredeemably by my skill choice and without having to spend hours online reading about the pros and cons of all the skills before assigning any points.

Likewise, the difference between paying $60 a $20 for a game I’m going to spend hundreds of hours playing isn’t that big a deal to me. Not that I wouldn’t have loved it if D3 was $20, and being $20 makes it more likely i might eventually pick up TL2 on a whim, but it’s just not a major issue for me. It’s time that I have in short supply now, next to that the price difference is minor.

“TL2 does a great job with the skill trees, but of course the trade off is a lack of respecs. I didn’t care about that in D2 since I had much more time for gaming in those days, and I thought nothing of making dozens of different characters to try out all the different builds and play styles. There’s no way I’ll ever do that in TL2 (or D3) which makes me appreciate the flexibility that D3?s freespecing allows.”

To reply to both at once: as soon as they release the mod tools, there will be a mod for respecs.

I played the TL2 Demo and liked the loot and gameplay, graphics were serviceable but reminded me a lot of League of Legends.

In the end, I think I’ve just grown out of the ARPG genre. Diablo 2 was the pinnacle for me, and Diablo 3 missed the mark. I don’t feel like grinding for 30-40 hours to only find 1 marginal upgrade, and use the rest of the gold I found for another marginal upgrade. It’s just a huge time sink that I don’t feel is worth my time.

So glad I got a DOTA2 invite through steam! Didn’t expect that, and I genuinely like it. The game feels fresh to me, and I played literally thousands of DOTA matches starting with RoC.

meh. we all have our own opinions. arguing that one is better than the other is just dumb. T2 is not bad. I haven’t had the urge tho to crack it open the last couple days. D3’s combat is just so much better feeling to me. Aside from the fact that there are more unique drops in it, I honestly don’t see what the fuss is with the loot in T2. It isn’t any more interesting than D3 in the early goings. Perhaps it’s endgame gear is where it gets more fun? I do still want D3’s loot improved. And if it takes a game like T2 and PoE to give the D3 team more ideas, then great. More competition is always a good thing.

All these articles are just trolling for page views. I have been keeping an eye on the T2 global achievements in steam. Either people are playing it very slowly or they are dropping the game after a few hours. Even act 2 achievements are very low on the completion percentage. For instance, the achievement to beat the genie dude is only at 21%. Pretty low and I got thru that point in 13 hours. So it’s not like I’ve played it non stop and I at least got that far. Wish Blizzard would let us see global achievements. Would be fun to compare.

That little note about skills growing with characters made me once again think that the removal of rune ranks was one of the worst decisions the design and development teams made for D3.

Good rune rank development and appropriate monster scaling would’ve significantly changed the difficulty people didn’t like at release, given people something to chase other than gear upgrades, created instant personal grails for people that didn’t care about loot, caused build diversity to skyrocket as people could largely build only with regards to what they found, and so on, and so forth. Oh well, though.

” […] I loved being able to spend some points to make my early skills better; instantly more damage, more radius, more fire tendrils seeking out enemies, etc. I like to get a skill I like, use it, get to know it, and improve it over time with more skill points. That was a core element of skills and spells in D1 and D2, as well as most other RPGs over history, and it’s weird that D3 chose to entirely jettison it by removing skill points AND skill rune levels. D3 does a fantastic job with all the variety of skills via runes, but I’d like ways to make them work better as well as differently.”

i never gave a about TL, and that argument $20 for TL is just pathetic. Long story short none (as in v few Blizz haters would) would buy TL2 over D3 if they stood on same ground. That said you either dont care how much the game costs or you can earn it back from RMAH so the whole price argument is failing.TL2 might be good for a while but never will be in D3 league. That comes from some1 that doesnt play D3 for two months now but i see the changes they make and i like them, it will take them a while but D3 will turn to be worthy iteration.

too much loot in TL2, i go through it so fast, and so much i have to sit there and figure out what is better. you mean for crit i have to up my str? but… i am a embermage…. :/ i hate having to put points in silly stats.

and man wth, why can i not shoot monsters not on the same level as me :/ wtb sniping ability with my firething that flies through the air. and the world isn’t as random as i thought, seems just dungeons, or maybe i am just getting unlucky with similar style places.

TL2 can get away with stuff and gizmos and gimmicks because it is cartoony, in the world of cartoony you can do anything.

path of exile noooo thank you.

but anyways, lots of things about TL2 irritated me.

but lots of things I did enjoy.

Personally, AND MY PERSONAL OPINION!!!!!!!!!!!, eat a Duck if you do not like it, well Peking duck sounds good…. hmmmm duck… anyways, I prefer Diablo 3. and i know diablo 3 will get better as well.

I play arpgs for the combat. Whichever has the best combat holds my attention. I played torchlight 1 – the combat was nowhere near as good as D2. D3 has far better combat than D2. The health globes are simply brilliant and the skills available are powerful, varied, and interesting. Nothing I have seen about TL2 makes me think the combat is even close to what D3 offers.

The other hook for arpgs is the rpg element. The feeling of character progression. D3 does have the feeling of progression. You have paragon levels. You have gold. You have loot acquired, sold, and bought. It is more like the progression you see in an mmo than we saw in D2 or D1. I think this is the disconnect with prior diablo fans. The combat is superior, but the progression system is so different and so heavily tied to every item slot.

D2 and D1 ‘builds’ often revolved around 2-3 specific items. The rest of the items were generic. D3 every item slot is important to the functioning of your character. And the ‘great’ items are great for all builds. I think this too contributes to ‘angst’ among diablo veterans – you cannot build a character around loot found in D3 like you can in D2 or D1. You cannot get by with 2-3 great items. They must all be good items to have a powerful character.

Ok, so the arguments for D3 are: 1. We don’t like having to think about our character design, and even if we did we would use Google to fix that. 2. Freespecs prevent us having to start at level 1 again – we the the grind 3. Runed skills 4. Better graphics

The arguments for TL2 are: 1. Pet >> Mercenaries 2. Has a story that isn’t rubbish, overacted, and unskippable 3. Is more fun 4. Has a much better loot engine, and finding gear > (RM)AH 5. Costs a third of the price 6. Has interesting elements in the world, be they enemies, secret areas, quests, or random dungeons 7. Is a better D2 sequel than D3 8. No online-only DRM, and has a LAN option 9. No need for respecs because the game is enjoyable enough to play from level 1 again with the same character class by choice

For me, only runed skills stands out in D3 in comparison to other games in the genre (while falling down in many aspects due to poor design choices), while TL2 is basically just another D2 clone.

I you ask me we’re comparing two poor-average titles like they’re boss; D3 is so bad that TL2 seems great, when there is very little ground-breaking about it.